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Library Managers

University of Waterloo
Library Managers, October 6, 2010
9:30 a.m., LIB 428

Present: Annie Bélanger, Betty Graf, Jennifer Haas, Michele Laing, Sharon Lamont, Susan Mavor, Carl Nagel, Richard Pinnell, Susan Routliffe (Chair), Mary Stanley, Debbie Tytko, Annette Dandyk (Recorder)

Regrets: Eric Boyd, Mark Haslett, Alex McCulloch

1. Business Arising from September 16
#2 Business Arising, Proposal to Reduce Watcard support at Circulation: Alex and Carl have discussed potential locations for the dedicated self serve terminals for adding funds to Watcards using credit or debit cards. The proposal has not yet begun.

#4 Around the Table Updates: the October 20 Managers meeting has been cancelled but the new staff lunch will proceed as planned.

2. Upcoming Renovation Activities
Sharon and Mark met with Dan Parent from Plant Operations this summer to discuss potential projects.
1. Porter – a donation from the Ober family will be used to refurbish the 10th floor study rooms. Before that work begins, a group will be set up to design an ideal group study room that could be used as a template for future study room renovations.
2. Davis – the greatest noise concerns exist in the big open area in front of the service desks.
Action: Sharon. Committees will be struck and Terms of Reference will be developed.
3. Davis – the campus master plan allows for a possible bump-out towards the ring road. Dan Parent believes this might be possible. Consultants will be hired to determine the feasibility, and if they deem it feasible a fundraising plan would be developed.

3. AUL Posting
Managers reviewed the job description and the first draft of the posting, and provided feedback.

4. myHRinfo – Managers Self Service – Training Summary
Sharon’s September 19 message to LibAdminPlus alerted supervisors about upcoming mandatory online Workplace Violence & Harassment Awareness training for all staff, and a training session for supervisors. As management, supervisors are responsible for ensuring that employees complete the training in a timely manner. A message from Kate Windsor (Health & Safety) was sent to all UW employees on September 20 with instructions for accessing the course.

Managers can check to see who has completed the training in myHRinfo. It provides a list of direct reports to them, as well as drill downs for the supervisors under them. Annette demonstrated how to access it:
• Logon to myHRinfo http://www.hr.uwaterloo.ca/myhrinfo/myhrinfo.html
• Managers Self Service

• Training Summary

Managers were asked to review the list of staff under their names in myHRinfo and let Annette know about any omissions or discrepancies in their units.

Staff are asked to complete the course by November 30. Annette will send a reminder in early November. Managers agreed that contract and casual staff should also take the training.
Action: all staff complete the online training
Managers
Annette

5. Around the Table Updates
Susan M
There were 61 visitors to Special Collections during the Doors Open event on September 18. Special Collections would like to participate again next year.

Sharon
The Principles of Inclusivity lecture and workshop, part of OHD’s speaker series are scheduled for October 20. The lecture is scheduled for 10:00 a.m. Humanities Theatre, HH, and the workshop will take place at 1:00 p.m. Managers were encouraged to attend at least the lecture. To register: www.ohd.uwaterloo.ca/speakers

Stemming from the recent revisions to the Librarians Employment Handbook was the idea that there would be merit in offering a session on professional advancement to help librarians better understand the process. Sharon and Susan have been developing a plan for a session that will likely be scheduled in December. The session will include a panel of people who would have a role in the process.

Mary
October 27 has been designated Library day. The event will run from 10:00 a.m. to noon and will follow the same format as in the past. It provides an opportunity to engage informally with students, and a chance to roll out a campaign that will focus on ‘your library’, an exercise to get students to take pride and ownership of the Library they study in.

Betty
For the OCUL Patron Driven Acquisitions Pilot (PDA) last week 38, 000 records were loaded into Trellis and Primo and then withdrawn. The project lasted 10 days. The evaluating, loading, indexing, deindexing and removing that volume of records for that short a period took considerable staff time and systems resources. Four copies of 467 titles were purchased. If there are further trials of this nature, a smaller subset of titles would be easier to work with. This was a pilot project initiated by OCUL at the request of Ebrary. OCUL IR will review the titles purchased and evaluate the success of the pilot.

Richard
The United Way coat sale is scheduled for October 18 and 19. Please deposit clean used coats in the boxes located in Porter and Davis.

Michele
The School of Architecture has received one time funding from the Musagetes Foundation. The funds will be allocated to the Library and will be used to refresh some equipment and furnishings.

Susan R
On October 5th Susan attended a meeting of the campus wide Student Services/Affairs working group. Ron McCarville provided an update on the work that he and Heather Westmoreland have been doing to prepare a report with recommendations for the New Student Transition Program. Key elements in the program will likely include:
• Pre-arrival initiatives aimed at preparing students for campus life from the time they confirm their acceptance in the spring and through the summer before they arrive.
• Programs to help parents understand the conditions that their student will face and to become familiar with services on campus so that they can guide and direct the student as required.
• Early intervention initiatives designed to help students as soon as they begin to face difficulties, e.g. failing a mid-term for the first time.
• A centralized communications strategy to ensure that students are not inundated and overwhelmed by information from numerous parts of the campus all at once. The development of a "just in time" approach to communication, to replace the current "just in case" approach.

Bud Walker noted that an announcement about a new Student Success Office will likely be made in a week or so.

Debbie
Acquisitions staff are currently very busy, paying all the subscription renewals.

Carl
Facilities: work is underway to provide electronic keys (fobs) to some staff on the 2nd and 3rd floors for after-hours access.

It is unknown when the broken window on the main floor of Porter Library will be repaired.

There was a safety issue of the new accessibility ramp being too close to the top of the stairs. The railing has been extended. Plant Operations is also looking into an access issue for wheelchairs in the Adaptive Technology centre itself.

Systems: Bookit will be taken out of use December 10th and everyone on campus who is on the Exchange server will begin using Exchange calendar. An external company will be hired to move the data from Bookit to Exchange calendar. A variety of training opportunities will be available (online, Camtasia, and courses in IST). The new calendaring system is nicely integrated with Outlook mail. Everybody’s mail will be transferred to the 2010 mail server by the end of October. Staff will not notice any change. It also has the potential to do room bookings.

A number of staff have commented that some messages that should go to their inboxes have been going into their Junk folders after the move to Exchange. There appears to be no rhyme or reason to what ends up in Junk. Charles has been investigating with IST.

An external audit of passwords on campus revealed severe deficiencies. There will be an announcement next week that passwords will have to be changed annually. The rules will be stricter, and passwords will expire annually to ensure that people comply.

New staff computers have begun arriving and will be deployed in two big groups – half before Christmas and half after. The change will also include new monitors for anyone who didn’t receive one in the first round. Software changes include Windows 7 operating system, Office 2010, and other updates where applicable. IST will likely offer some training courses soon.

Public printing is booming with over 3,000 jobs per day. At UCIST last week there was discussion about standardizing printing costs across campus to 10 cents per page and 15 cents for duplex (double sided). Standardizing colour printing costs is still being discussed. The Library may not be able to participate in the reduced cost for double sided because of the way the software interacts with Watcard.

There have been some PDF printing issues although they are few considering the volume. They seem to be coming out of Science. Systems staff are investigating.

Next meeting: November 3; LIB 428


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 

 

 


 


 


 


 


 




 




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October 25, 2010